


A game of cat and chicken

by laughingpineapple



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, brooding like a chicken, mentions of past death, mid-chapter 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:02:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: Tonight, in this very town, something is going down and assassins are on the prowl. It would be a pity if they were to hit someone, says Jowd, eagerly jumping in the way of a bullet.
Relationships: Cabanela/Jowd (Ghost Trick)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	A game of cat and chicken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Siver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siver/gifts).



> Ghost Swap 10th anniversary edition treat (10 years of Ghost Trick! Can you imagine) for the most amazing Siver! That makes 10 years (give or take the Western release + 1 month for me) of absolutely not getting tired of ch9 missing moments. Onwards!

The city has changed. Under the harsh light of the full moon, death row inmate Jowd follows his captor’s lead through a maze of foreign streets. This is not his home. It does not interest him. Instead he nurses a little fantasy to keep himself busy as they walk: in his mind, he pictures Cabanela getting shot, or run over, not that there’s much traffic at this hour of the night, so that that strange ghost who wears Yomiel’s face could save him (ironically enough, all things considered). Then, and this is the important part, they could talk. Soul to soul. Imagine that. The prospect of intimacy – strange and forced, for old friends who betrayed each other and cannot talk – sends a thrill down his spine. It is a good thought to entertain, over and over.

Of course life is not that charitable. Jowd is not stupid: this little fantasy is unattainable. When the strange rules of ghosts forced him to open his heart and be honest, he was quick to see how half-truths, honest questions and untold truths could build adequate walls. Cabanela is not stupid either and would only find new ways to lie.

It would still be nice to die together, even if just for a handful of minutes.

The high rises cover the moon. Just neon and ads dotting the sky now. A man in a black suit walks to meet them across the expanse of the empty boulevard. The artificial light that falls over his pale hair paints it an unnatural white; as their gazes meet, Jowd knows at once that there is copious blood on his blue hands, and he’s out for more.

Murderer intuition: roughly the same as detective intuition, it turns out. Also, in a way, like riding a bicycle and easy to pick back up after five years of stasis.

The man’s firm polite smile widens into something unintelligible. He has a gun trained on them, hidden under his jacket in a display of modesty that does not suit the rest of him. He makes a wide gesture toward them. Cabanela rolls his eyes, lets his own gun drop to the ground and raises his hands. Jowd sees the first beats of his fantasy play out in front of his eyes and wonders whether he should feel guilty about it, for having conjured this scenario out of thin air as well as for the anticipation that’s settling in his bones.

For about five seconds, he tries to conjure a chicken, too, but reality doesn’t seem to be interested in catering to that specific desire of his and so he drops that line of thought.

It’s Cabanela who first breaks the silence. “You wound my heart, baby,” he says, with the tone of voice one usually reserves for declaring opening moves in chess.

“Everything I said was true,” replies the foreigner with the same detached fascination, more interested in what will happen six moves ahead than in the immediate aftermath.

“You said, two desseeerts.”

“Long spoons don’t fall in the bowl.”

Jowd ponders the connections that allow the sharing of a code. People making new connections while he wasn’t looking. His erstwhile best friend first and foremost.

Cabanela nods, pondering that bit of ciphered wisdom meant for him and the assassin alone. “But even they fall from the table,” he says eventually, “like thiiis.” He lets his left arm drop, snapping his fingers, and a bullet is fired.

Again: detective’s instincts, murderer’s instincts, rusty either way, but still sharp enough for Jowd to feel the change in the air before he hears the shot, which rings in his ears when he’s already jumped, already hit the ground, shielding Cabanela’s twiggy body with his own. Turns out that Jowd’s imagination can paint that white coat bloodied in painstaking detail, but when push comes to shove, his instincts disagree, or maybe his goal was to claim that bullet for himself and get his sentence now that that meddling ghost is far away. So he’s curled around Cabanela, pressing his body against the ground as the gunshot echoes and fades across the street, and he expects the pain to hit at any moment now. It’s a comforting thought. All the times he tried to climb to his freedom during the blackout and a guard put him in his place, there was an element of relief to the pain blooming in his wound. It felt like a chunk of his guilt had been shot away, as if his body had finally caught up with what the rest of him deserved, again and again, botched attempt after botched attempt.

He can still feel those deaths. But only in his memories. Seconds pass in silence and nothing changes. He breathes. His heart beats. This satisfaction is denied to him. Eventually, he raises his head.

Half a dozen feet away from them, the assassin is lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Jowd squints. He’s pictured several outcomes of this little confrontation and this doesn’t even come close to any of them.

“My _coat_ ,” grunts Cabanela from underneath him.

“That’s your first concern?”

“What eeelse?”

“No, you’re right. Can’t think of a single thing.”

“Pah. If I had to worry for every business end of a gun I’ve seen of late… please catch on, baby. Tonight is a baaattleground. I had snipers in place. Obviously. Now if you’d pleeease let me lift an arm, I’d like to signal to the boys that we’re fine here. Unless you have other plans?”

Funny thing is, for all of Cabanela’s grumbling, Jowd can’t help but notice how the man hasn’t moved a muscle to try and sneak out of his predicament. As a matter of fact, he is staying so still that he isn’t even tapping the ground to some rhythm in his head, and Jowd could swear he has never been this quiet even when (if) he falls asleep – motionless except for the slow, deep breaths he is taking against Jowd’s collarbone, through the thick fabric of the smock.

Even then, his muscles are tense and he is so very alive. Cabanela burns with a fire of his own and in the end it is Jowd who pulls back and leaves him to his official Inspector business, signal the squad, examine the body, whatever else a detective may have to do in this faraway future he’s been thrown into all of a sudden.

Sitting on the sidewalk as he waits for their little tour to resume, he can still feel his heartbeat, his warmth, that fire that feels contagious. Jowd can’t afford that. Jowd doesn’t deserve that, either.

He stares at him from afar; Cabanela turns around for an instant and notices. Jowd notices that he’s noticed. It is a strange connection. For now, it will have to do.


End file.
